The women’s canoe sprint K4 won a thrilling battle with Germany to earn New Zealand’s fourth gold medal of the Olympics.
New Zealand – Lisa Carrington, Alicia Hoskin, Olivia Brett and Tara Vaughan – completed some unfinished business with their victory today. In the Tokyo Olympics, the New Zealand women’s K4 500 team finished fourth.
This was Carrington’s sixth Olympic gold medal. She is clearly the leading New Zealand Olympian in terms of gold medals won. Hoskin raced in two events in Tokyo, but for Brett and Vaughan it is their first Olympics.
The New Zealanders started brilliantly and, typical Carrington tactics, had two metres on the field after a few seconds. In hindsight, that was the winning of the race.
New Zealand led at halfway but Germany stormed to the front and it was race on. New Zealand responded well and nosed ahead over the last 60 metres.
New Zealand won in 1min 32.20s, Germany were second in 1min 32.62s and Hungary were third in 1min 32.93s.
Carrington said later that to win the K4 was incredible. "You have to have four girls doing the same thing at the same time in the same team. It's hard work and it doesn't just come together by itself. We really put in the work."
The women stressed that their ethos was that it's a collective thing: when they paddle together they're better than when they do it on their own.
They explained that even though it looked as if they were responding to the Germans in the closing stages, that's their strategy anyway. "Our plan is not dying. We want to be strong over the last part. And we executed that strategy really well today," said Hoskin.
She said the K4 isn't the easiest boat and that the team builds from year to year. "It's a complex boat and we learnt a lot from the girls who went before us."
The precarious run of the men's K4 - Max Brown, Grant Clancy, Kurtis Imrie and Hamish Legarth - ended when they trailed home the field in the final.
The men scraped into the semi-finals via the repechage route, then shaded Denmark in their semi-final by 0.15s to grab the last spot in the final.
Germany were too good in the final and won in 1min 19.80s. New Zealand were timed at 1min 22.19s.